From January 2004 through May 2005 the
US Department of Agriculture issued 1,036 citations
to meatpacking companies for violating safety rules
related to Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE).
The violations involve so-called Specified Risk Materials
(SRMs) including "removal of the brain, skull and
spinal cord of cattle aged 30 months and older." Such
body parts were banned from the human food supply
in December 2003. Documents detailing the citations
were released to the American Meat Institute (AMI)
and Public Citizen as a result of Freedom of Information
Act (FOIA) requests. Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy
group, claims that federal US meat inspectors incorrectly
segmented cows by age and allowed normal processing
of SRMs. Not surprisingly, AMI disagrees and said
that the citations represent only about one-tenth
of a percent of the total of 46 million cows slaughtered
in the US during the 17-month period. Note however
that the 1,036 SRM-related citations were less than
1% of all "non-compliance records" issued during the
same period, suggesting that other non-compliance
issues abound in the cow slaughter and "beef" processing
industries. The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection
Service (FSIS) has approximately 8,000 inspectors
charged with oversight of animal handling and slaughter.

According to a special report from the
magazine US News and World Report, farmed "pigs became
anxious and would drop dead at the slightest upset"
as a result of a long history of selective breeding.
Researchers have also discovered a gene responsible
for "porcine stress syndrome," possibly created or
at least exacerbated through selective breeding. Today's
farmed pigs are bred to be lean relative to their
predecessors in response to consumer demands for less
fatty foods. Around year 1900, pigs were generally
much larger, sometimes weighing as much as 2,000 pounds.
The author notes that current farmed pigs gain nearly
a pound of muscle a day up to a "market" weight of
more than 250 pounds. However, such "efficiency" has
led to both animal welfare issues and what the author
considers a bland taste for most modern pork products.
She also notes, "With 100 million hogs slaughtered
each year (in the US), these efficiencies... have
also sparked growing concerns about animal welfare
and pollution."

In FAW 5-30 we reported that Greenpeace announced
Monsanto Corporation has filed for patents on combining
techniques to breed pigs for farming and consumption.
One of the patents would cover the means of identifying
key gene markers that "indicate pigs with better meat
characteristics." Greenpeace's announcement has resulted
in a war of words between spokespeople from the environmental
group and the agriculture and bioengineering giant.
Greenpeace claims that granting the patent would "open
the flood gates for other companies and other animals"
while also ensuring a monopoly of sorts on the future
pig breeding. Monsanto , already a major player in
the farmed animal feed industry, argues that similar
patents are filed all the time by its competitors.

FARM FIRE: A fire in Michigan has killed 250,000 hens housed in facilities operated by one of the country's largest egg suppliers. The cause of the fire that occurred at Herbruck Poultry Farm, which houses nearly 3 million hens in close confinement, is unknown. This most recent tragedy is added to a list of fatal barn fires this summer. In June we reported that nearly 420,000 chickens had perished in a barn fire in Iowa, and again in July that 62,000 birds died in two separate incidents involving heat exhaustion and yet another fire in Pennsylvania.

RESCUE: The new owner of a piece
of land in California reluctantly accepted the inclusion
of 160,000 "spent" hens as part of the sale but is
allowing animal protection groups to try to find them
homes. Working with the Marin Humane Society, farmed
animal sanctuary Animal Place has rescued more than
700 hens and is actively seeking homes for many of
them. Commenting on the freed birds, one rescuer noted,
"These birds were born in incubators and put in cages
about double the size floor space of a record album.
They have never been outside. They have never touched
the earth, never seen the sun shine."

At the Global-8 Summit in Scotland in
July, US president Bush proposed an agreement under
which the $112 billion that "rich countries" spend
on farm-related subsidies would be eliminated by 2010.
The move follows a recommendation from the Bush administration
to decrease government payments to US farmers by $500
million as part of the 2006 budget. Federal subsidies
paid to farmers remain high, however; agriculture-related
government payments in the US are estimated to total
$17 billion this year. In 2003, according to the Environmental
Working Group (EWG), the largest of these payments
(top ten categories) can be broken down as follows:

At least $7.3 billion, or nearly half
of the total $17 billion in farm-related subsidies,
is given to farmers growing crops for farmed animal
feed. This is in addition to government payments directly
to animal farmers themselves, including the $344 million
in "livestock subsidies" noted above. Also according
to EWG, in 2003 more than half of all farm-related
government subsidies were paid to the top 5% of farms,
a system some say puts small family farmers at a disadvantage.

Using the same data but a somewhat different methodology,
the US Department of Agriculture's Economic Research
Service (ERS) also provides estimates of total farm
payments by specific farmed animal sector. According
to the ERS, government payments or subsidies to farms
were much larger in 2003 than in 2002, increasing
from $11 billion to $16 billion (rounded down). ERS
estimates include the following total payments by
sector for 2003:

The Association of Sanctuaries Conference
September 22-24, 2005; Denver, CO

The Power of One (Compassionate Living Festival)
October 7-9, 2005; Raleigh-Durham, NC

6. Other Items of Interest

"Food Company Aims to Curb
Antibiotic Use in Pork," USA Today / AP, 8/4/05
Compass Group, a major US foodservice company, has
worked with the world's largest pig slaughterer (Smithfield
Foods) to devise a policy to only accept "pork" from
operations that do not treat pigs with antibiotics
also used on humans. Smithfield already has such a
policy in place, which is becoming more common among
pig farmers as concerns grow about human resistance
to antibiotics resulting from their use on farmed
animals. Compass Group, which purchases 30 million
pounds of pork every year, says the decision was based
on consumer demand and perception. http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2005-08-04-pork-antibiotics_x.htm

"UK Milk Production Facing 'Worst Case Scenario',
Says Study," Dairy Reporter, 8/11/05
A report from the UK's Department for Environment,
Food, and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) says that the country
will miss its milk production quota by more than a
billion liters due to major producers leaving the
industry. The report notes that 45 of 363 dairy farms
surveyed in 2003 had left the industry and another
25 farms said they intended to leave in the next few
years. http://www.dairyreporter.com/news/news-ng.asp?n=61864-uk-milk-production

PRESS RELEASE: "Humane Farm Animal Care is
First Animal Welfare Certification Body to Gain ISO
Guide 65 Accreditation," PRNewswire, 8/10/05
Farmed animal welfare group Humane Farm Animal Care
(HFAC) has been granted ISO accreditation by the US
Department of Agriculture for operating third-party
product certification systems. HFAC's program, Certified
Humane, is currently in use by 31 companies and was
awarded the accreditation for developing "certification
system in a consistent and reliable manner based on
internationally recognized methods." http://tinyurl.com/aeckz
(prnewswire.com)

BOOK: "The Holocaust and The Henmaid's Tale:
A Case for Comparing Atrocities," July 2005
Karen Davis, PhD, founder and president of animal
activist group United Poultry Concerns, has released
a new book with the above title. Publisher Lantern
Books describes the manuscript as drawing "significant
parallels… between the Holocaust and the institutionalized
abuse of billions of animals in factory farms." The
analogy ranges from the general to the specific, including
noting that the Nazi Heinrich Himmler was a chicken
farmer who Davis says epitomizes the spirit of exploitation
of both animals and humans alike. http://upc-online.org/nr/80205newbook.htm

"The Contribution of Poultry to Rural Development,"
FAO, March 2005
Researchers with the Food and Agriculture Organization
of the United Nations released a paper in March 2005
providing a "global overview of the development of
the poultry sector and of the role of small-scale,
family-based poultry production in developing countries."
The article is in favor of small-scale chicken farming
and describes several initiatives to spur growth of
such farms in "developing" countries. The authors
also note that "poultry meat is the fastest growing
component of global meat production, consumption,
and trade."
PDF file: http://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/subjects/en/infpd/documents/Mack.pdf